[ the deck becomes a thrum of disappearing feet and distant thudding of boots before silence falls on them. all he can hear is the lapping of water against the bow, koby's breathing, and the soft words of his second in command. koby ripples with a power he doesn't have a name for, but it doesn't matter with his arms around him. nothing matters but the way he can press his face against his neck and breathe him in. even here he smells of sunlight, sea salt, open air.
it's me koby says and he feels so weak and childish for the way he sobs against his shoulder, the way the tears come from relief and sorrow and joy all at once. he clutches at koby's broad back, the fabric of his uniform - a body he doesn't know as well as the one before, but has all the makings. but koby is saying his name and koby is there and warm and real and quentin's heart shatters in his chest. ]
I tried to find you.
[ desperate, watery, spoken into his throat like a man unable to find the surface of the water, gasping for air and panicking, slapping at the water to reach the sunbaked horizon. like he's just been tossed into the sea all over again, chewed up and spit out. it takes a little time for him to stop sobbing, to clear his thoughts enough to take in the words koby speaks, those callused hands on his cheeks drawing him up to the surface. ]
I'm fine.
[ he's not. he's aching and sore and tired - working for passage, working for housing, working and working and being paid so little but here he is. he found him. he found koby and he would do all of it over and over again just to come back to this ship and see him. a part of him wonders if he shouldn't be here, if koby has some other life, some other dream and quentin would be okay watching him, a sunbeam dancing across the waves. ]
Probably. [ a watery, weak laugh, his hands coming up to koby's and be damned anyone else his heart belongs to because he drags him in for a desperate kiss. it's a little fumbling, quentin's lips sun-chapped, but he wants nothing more than to be sure he's here. taste him and feel him and smell him - not some ghost of his dreams. ]
I can walk. I can... I'll go anywhere you want me to go.
[ what else could matter but this? koby could tell him to walk into flames, to sink to the bottom of the ocean, to run to the ends of the earth and he would do it just to be there with him for a moment longer.
quentin's eyes burn golden, the air around them turned to misty starlight. there are so many things he can see - drifting outlines of the paths koby could take. the world koby will fight to make. he doesn't want to see it - doesn't want to feel the ache of all of koby's possibilities and find he's not one of them.
the light in his eyes dies, the air stilling and going sunny and sea-kissed. ]
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it's me koby says and he feels so weak and childish for the way he sobs against his shoulder, the way the tears come from relief and sorrow and joy all at once. he clutches at koby's broad back, the fabric of his uniform - a body he doesn't know as well as the one before, but has all the makings. but koby is saying his name and koby is there and warm and real and quentin's heart shatters in his chest. ]
I tried to find you.
[ desperate, watery, spoken into his throat like a man unable to find the surface of the water, gasping for air and panicking, slapping at the water to reach the sunbaked horizon. like he's just been tossed into the sea all over again, chewed up and spit out. it takes a little time for him to stop sobbing, to clear his thoughts enough to take in the words koby speaks, those callused hands on his cheeks drawing him up to the surface. ]
I'm fine.
[ he's not. he's aching and sore and tired - working for passage, working for housing, working and working and being paid so little but here he is. he found him. he found koby and he would do all of it over and over again just to come back to this ship and see him. a part of him wonders if he shouldn't be here, if koby has some other life, some other dream and quentin would be okay watching him, a sunbeam dancing across the waves. ]
Probably. [ a watery, weak laugh, his hands coming up to koby's and be damned anyone else his heart belongs to because he drags him in for a desperate kiss. it's a little fumbling, quentin's lips sun-chapped, but he wants nothing more than to be sure he's here. taste him and feel him and smell him - not some ghost of his dreams. ]
I can walk. I can... I'll go anywhere you want me to go.
[ what else could matter but this? koby could tell him to walk into flames, to sink to the bottom of the ocean, to run to the ends of the earth and he would do it just to be there with him for a moment longer.
quentin's eyes burn golden, the air around them turned to misty starlight. there are so many things he can see - drifting outlines of the paths koby could take. the world koby will fight to make. he doesn't want to see it - doesn't want to feel the ache of all of koby's possibilities and find he's not one of them.
the light in his eyes dies, the air stilling and going sunny and sea-kissed. ]
I've looked for you for so long.